Fight Over Trust Fund May Go To The Grave

Fight Over Woman's Trust Fund May End Up Going To The Grave

SIMSBURY — Austen Eno Curtiss, the son of a prominent Yankee clan, may have a secret locked in his grave that could determine the fate of a $1.4 million trust.

His mother, the grande dame of a family with roots stretching back to 18th-century Simsbury, left the money when she died in 1964.

According to Abigail Eno Ellsworth's will, the money in the trust after the death of her last blood relative was to be divided 60 percent to the grandchildren of her second husband, who were not her blood kin, and 40 percent to Simsbury charities. Ellsworth's older son and last known surviving relative, Joseph Toy Curtiss, died in October and the grandchildren were to get their money this year.

Enter Karen Gieselman Dee, an Indiana woman who threatens to unearth the man she claims is her father and to take the grandchildren's share of the trust.

Dee claims to be the illegitimate daughter of Austen or "Pete" Curtiss, Abigail's younger son, and if she can prove her bloodline, she will take about $840,000 of the trust.

Dee says she has letters from her father, family jewelry and paintings to prove her story. And if that isn't enough, her attorney says the truth could be dug from the family plot in Simsbury.

"We propose to do some DNA testing," said Lawrence Lissitzyn, Dee's Hartford attorney. "Mr. Curtiss is one person we would test."

Using DNA technology on an exhumed body to prove parentage is unusual, said lawyers familiar with the case.

Dee, 43, assistant manager of an apartment complex in Indianapolis, said she did not come forward just to stake a claim.

"It's not a money issue. It's just the fact that I am the closest heir of Abigail. I couldn't turn my back on that," she said. "To not come forward would be to look away from the fact that Austen Eno was my father. My father would not want me to walk away from this."

Dee said Austen Eno Curtiss met her natural mother through one of his jobs in Indianapolis and became involved with her while he was married to Leaurel B. Curtiss.

Dee said she knew Curtiss as "Uncle Pete." She added that Austen, his wife, her mother and her stepfather vowed not to tell her that Austen was her father until she was 21. She said she was not sure what to do when she heard about Abigail's will through Fleet Bank in Simsbury, the bank that acted as a trustee. Dee said the bank had been in contact with her periodically over the past 20 years.

"I never would have known anything about that will if I had not been contacted by the bank," Dee said. "I seriously thought of walking away from this so that this would stay a private matter."

Dee said she was very close to her father, who visited her often. She also claims to have met Abigail Eno Ellsworth and Joseph T. Curtiss, Austen's older brother.

"It was certainly a close father-daughter relationship," Dee said. "He's still the most tremendous person I've ever known."

But no one in the extended family seems to know her. Relatives and friends who knew Austen Eno Curtiss said he had no children.

Dee, however responded that those family and friends never really knew Austen after he left Connecticut.

"Most of [those] people had no idea of his life when he left Connecticut," she said. "I don't know how they could state something so bold."

Dee's attorney made her claim at a hearing last Friday in Simsbury probate court. Judge of Probate Steven Zelman continued the hearing to April.

Zelman has not made a ruling on whether Curtiss's body will be exumed.

"Pete was not very much of a student. He was probably more of a party animal," Eno said. "He enjoyed life in a different way than Joe. He'd talk to you about a football game, not what Chaucer wrote."

Austen Curtiss was dismissed from Yale in his freshman year because he got married, friends and relatives said. He moved to Indianapolis with his new bride and worked as a clerk for a railroad and in a General Motors plant, according to his obituary.

"He liked to kick up his heels," said Joseph Pattison, who lived across the street from the family on Massaco Street in Simsbury. "There was no real harm in Pete. He would do things and would not think of the consequences." Once, Pattison said, Austen Curtiss sneaked out of his house and borrowed his stepfather's car and drove him and some other friends to a dance hall in Southwick, Mass.

Abigail Eno Ellsworth, a charter member of both the local chapter of the Daughter of the American Revolution and the Simsbury Historical Society, was married twice -- first to Joseph Toy Curtiss, who died in an automobile accident, then to Henry E. Ellsworth, president of the Ensign-Bickford Co. from 1935 to 1944.

The younger son, Austen "Pete" Curtiss, died at age 56 on Feb. 13, 1964 -- a month and a day after his mother. The grandchildren of Henry Ellsworth were next in line to receive the money.

The lawyer representing the 10 grandchildren, Judith Keppleman of Robinson and Cole in Hartford, declined to comment on the case. The grandchildren themselves also declined